Sweeter Than Water
by Trins xxx
Summary: The world as they know it ends, and not in a way any of them imagined. Facing a post-apocalyptic reality, out favourite Greendale gang slowly find out that sometimes you have to destroy, to create something stronger and more beautiful than before. But it doesn't mean the path to destruction isn't filled with pain... And sometimes you have to hate before you can love...


**Disclaimer****: **I don't own Community. I doubt I could create something quite this wonderful by myself.

**Author's Note****: **So what more extreme situation could our favourite Greendale gang find themselves in, if not a post-apocalyptic world. AU from when Pierce was still alive, alluding to Jeff/Britta and Jeff/Annie, this starts where the story actually ends. And the fun of the story is finding out how they got there.

For the fans of Annie and Annie/Jeff – don't judge the story until you've read down to the end. The start is misleading in many ways, so please bear with me.

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**Sweeter Than Water**

Prologue

'Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.'

_~ Stephen Hawking ~_

The sounds of rustling in the overgrowth reached his ears and Abed accordingly tightened his hold on the gun, eyes swiftly searching the area for any signs of movement. His fingers had formed a solid grip on his Colt and he had trained it in the vicinity of the sound when the figure stumbled forward. It took a few more seconds for him to recognise the figure.

'Jeff?' His grip didn't lessen and he continued to keep it focused on the area. 'Britta?' His voice sharpened at the question. It wasn't until Jeff was only a couple of feet away that Abed relaxed his stance and moved forward to help Jeff. Putting his arms around the shorter man, he took much of Jeff's weight, easing his hobble towards the building. Now that he was closer, he could see the pallor on his face, the beads of sweat rolling down and the dark stain on his left leg that would undoubtedly turn out to be blood. Still no Britta in sight but he pursed his lips, choosing to help him inside the building as another guy took his place. There would be time enough for questions once he was settled and they could see the damage done to his leg.

It didn't take long for Annie and Shirley to find the two of them in the first apartment on the left of the entrance to the block of apartments, and even less time for them to cut off Jeff's jeans.

'I'm okay. It's just a graze,' he had protested weakly but all of them had ignored him. As it turned out, Jeff was right. It was just a graze requiring little more than cleaning and steristrips.

'Jeff, where's Britta?' Shirley asked, her voice carefully level as she applied the steristrips whilst Annie held the skin puckered together. His eyes were closed and his head leaning backwards, but the only change came in the form of his forehead becoming more puckered.

More pain, Abed thought, but was it physical or emotional? He wasn't surprised that Troy and Pierce hadn't come down. Pierce was still recovering, and Troy had probably noticed that only Jeff had returned. No doubt, he would rather hear the worst of it from Abed, details omitted or edited.

Abed watched him closely, picking up on signs and interpreting them in a manner that would've been unfathomable to him a mere 6 weeks ago.

'It was part of her plan all along,' he finally said tiredly. 'Or at least, it was always her Plan B if shit hit the fan.'

'Is she dead?' Annie asked bluntly and not for the first time, Abed wondered what was going on in the brunette's head and how she really felt about the missing blonde.

'No!' Jeff replied quickly, maybe even a little tersely, looking someone in the face for the first time since arriving. 'We managed to waylay the armaments but we were outnumbered, outgunned.' He licked his lips, eyes burning into Annie's as he carried on speaking. 'You know they have her brother – the rumour's been circulating for weeks. I think she was always looking for a way in, to find him, whether it was breaking in or...'

'What happened Jeff?' Shirley prompted tiredly.

'When I got hit, she provided distraction.' Unnamed emotions passed across his face within seconds until he was impassive again. 'She got hit – I don't know how badly. She told me to get back and she...' He swallowed a lump. 'She gave herself up.'

'What do we do now?' Annie asked as the others absorbed the information.

'We carry on fighting,' Jeff spoke grimly, the leader in him emerging despite the exhaustion. 'And we get Britta back.'

'What's the point?' Annie's tone was harsh, her eyes even more so. 'It's not like we're ever going to win. And she's probably dead already,' She drew in a steadying breath, before continuing with an afterthought. 'Like he brother. It's idealistic and completely unrealistic.'

'Do you even care, Annie?'

The brunette tilted her head in confusion at Shirley's docile question.

'About Britta? About the fact that she might be dead? Do you even care about it?' It was Abed's turn to tilt his head as Shirley's voice gained cast iron. 'Because you've made it abundantly clear that you don't give a shit about the thousands of innocent people that were killed abroad or the hundreds of people that are missing and presumed dead here. You clearly don't care about '_idealism_' or, you know, democracy in practice, so if you don't even give a shit about one of us captured and presumed dead, I don't really know what you're doing here.'

The silence felt stifling, intoxicating and poisoning like smog and nobody dared to utter a word. Annie was spluttering silently, mouth opening and closing and moving in all directions with no sound coming out. It should've felt like a bombshell but it felt more like inevitability and Abed was too tired to really care enough about the ultimatum to think of any movie or TV comparisons.

Finally, a word squeaked out. 'Jeff?' Annie was an intermingled mess of imploring and demanding and it was just typical of her to turn to Jeff to bail her out that Abed would've banged his head against the wall, if he had the energy.

What wasn't typical was Jeff's silence. His eyes were boring into Annie's but there was no googling or love-tinted glasses. It was a viperous stare that had both Abed and Shirley leaning forward.

'Jeff?' Her voice trembled with uncertainty now, brow furrowing, her eyes assessing the planes of the blonde's face, searching for an answer she didn't seem to find.

'Do you give a shit about Britta?' He asked bluntly.

'I- Of course I do but...' She sucked in a painful breath. 'It just...it all feels so futile. How many people have we lost? And how many have we gotten back? It just feels like it's all pointless. What are the chances we'd succeed?' She sounded defeated.

'You think it's pointless trying to save Britta?' Shirley's voice was ice.

'It's interesting because there's no doubt that Britta would have tried to save you without a second thought if the positions were reversed,' the words tripped out, one after another, from Abed's lips as he watched Annie's colour recede even further.

'It doesn't matter. She's either one of us or one of them, and she seems to have made that choice,' Jeff broke the silence, eyes focused solely on his wound and away from Annie's watering eyes.

'That's not true.' For the second time, Abed surprised himself with the words traipsing off his lips. The single lamp lighting the room was casting shadows, the slightest movements causing them to dance like haunting phantoms. It felt stifling, this room full of ultimatums and betrayals of friendship. 'Britta would never accept a binary choice. And she'd be pretty pissed off to find that we were turning our backs on each other. I vote that if Annie wants to stay here, she can. But if she thinks saving Britta or fighting for our cause is pointless, she should remain ignorant of our plans.'

'You can't exclude me!' Annie broke in harshly.

'But we're not excluding you,' Abed tilted his head, the better to try and understand the girl in front of him. 'You and your choices are excluding you. Troy's the same,' he shrugged dismissively. 'He doesn't want to know the bad details so I don't share them with him. Pierce is the opposite. He can't do anything to help us but he'd rather know everything, warts and all. At the end of the day, it's your choice whether you want to be with us or with other people, out there. And it's equally your choice as to whether you help us or not. But if you don't want to help us, don't you think it's our choice not to share our plots and plans with you?'

'Some choice,' her retort was brittle. 'This is emotional blackmail.'

'No, what _I _was saying was emotional blackmail,' the older woman was impervious to the younger one's tears. 'Abed is just talking logic.'

'Yeah, logic devoid of human emotions,' she responded bitterly.

'You might _think _I have no emotions but I do. I was worried about Jeff and Britta. Now I'm panicking about her. I miss her and more than that, I miss how life used to be. I'm pissed off with you, Annie. In fact, I'm downright furious and I'm _scared_ of feeling the sort of despair _you're_ clearly feeling. And I have no _idea_ where my dad is. More probably than not, he's dead or tortured on the way to death, for no other reason than being Muslim and not born in this country. And this is the dad who put up with me day in and day out and paid for my time in Greendale, _twice_. And if they got their hands on me, they'd probably do the same to me. So I might _sound_ monotonous and I may make excessive references to pop culture, but trust me when I say that I am _not_ devoid of emotions.'

'Abed...' The two syllables were drenched in guilt but his face remained expressionless.

'Enough. The rest of the conversation can wait till tomorrow.' Jeff grunted as he stood up, Abed automatically moving to his side to offer support. 'It'll give everyone time to think about what's been discussed and then make a choice.' His words were underlined with steel as exited the room.

The silence was deafening, with the only sounds being Annie's choked sobs, swallowed in the darkness of the room. Shirley looked at her, eyes narrowed, trying to read and understand a person she no longer felt like she knew.

'How much of this has to do with Jeff?'

'What?'

She was shaking, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane and Shirley wondered how she could not be moved by it. She might still have faith in Jesus but she felt like she was losing her faith in his principles. It was the intoxication of alcohol mixed with the despair she had felt back then. Her mouth itched for alcohol, her throat was parched. She licked her dry lips.

'How much of this has to do with Jeff? And Britta? Jeff and Britta being Jeff and Britta?' Time to mend bridges, even if this sounded like an unlikely start.

'There is no Jeff and Britta.'

'There isn't a Jeff and Annie either but it doesn't mean those feelings don't exist.' Her tone had gentled.

'And isn't that nice and patronising,' came the biting rejoinder. 'Goodnight Shirley. Thanks for the fortune cookie but no thanks.'

Shirley sighed. The darkness of the room suited her just fine, a nice complement to her thoughts and the jumbled mess that her feelings were. Bridges were burning left, right and centre and she was burning them herself, despite her intentions otherwise. Hell, it felt like the world was burning down around her and every time she closed her eyes, all she saw were blood and bodies. She never had been a zombie person or one for science fiction. When she thought of the end of the world, she thought about angels and saints, judgment and heaven. Instead, she found herself surrounded by dead innocents and morality a permanent shade of grey.

She sighed again. She doubted she'd be getting much sleep tonight either, exhaustion or not.

**43 Days Ago**

Annie managed to catch sight of the blonde that had been on her mind all day. It had been a couple of weeks since they had destroyed (and simultaneously saved) Greendale and it hadn't escaped her notice that the blonde seemed disgruntled about it all. She lengthened her stride, gaining on her quarry.

'Britta, hey Britta,' she nearly ran into her as the blonde stopped abruptly. 'Hey, where are you going? You know we have classes in the afternoon right?' Annie's smile was tentative, finding herself in unfamiliar territory.

'Yeah, I know. There's just some stuff I have to take care off,' her answer was as evasive as her gaze and Annie could practically feel the distance between them increasing.

'Anything I can help with?' The brunette was nothing if not persistent.

'No, don't worry. I'll see you tomorrow.' Hands firmly in her pocket, Britta politely dismissed her, which Annie chose to ignore.

'Britta, what's wrong?' She discarded any ingenuity completely, intuiting that blunt honesty would go down better right now. 'You've sort of been...' She bit her tongue on 'distant'. 'Distracted, lately and I am, we all are, sort of worried about you. Is everything okay?'

The first genuine in what felt like forever spread across Britta's face, bringing some warmth that had been sorely missing. Just as quickly, it became strained. 'Don't worry, it's fine. I'll be fine. I'll see you tomorrow, 'kay?' She turned and walked away, leaving behind an anxious, perplexed friend, staring at her retreating back.

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**Author's Note – The Sequel****: **So when I first uploaded the chapter, I got two reviews critical of how I portrayed Annie. I was initially defensive and dismissive, until I realised that you guys can't see the story the way I see it; you don't know the whole story (yet) or how they got where they are. It's starting from a messed up place, and much of the story will be showing how they got there. It's not just Annie who's 'out of character', for a lack of better term. It's not like Jeff to consistently be cruel (without guilt) or for Abed to be venturing into the real world while Troy shies away from it. I consequently wrote an excerpt from the next chapter, focussing on Annie and Britta and sort of showing the start of the devolution of their relationship. I have also changed the tag to the story accordingly.

I also wanted to add that I was a fan of Annie/Jeff before I fell for Britta/Jeff, but I also love Annie/Troy and Britta/Troy. So basically I ship everyone. This story will make references to all the above but at present, I do not foresee any one relationship overriding the others. It's a story focused on people and group dynamics and friendships rather than romance. And it's also one which will not unfairly (or unjustly) bash a character - by which I mean some characters will be cruel and brutal about other characters, but it needs to be emphasised that they represent the feelings and opinions of the character, not the narrator. It will tease out everyone's weaknesses and develop back-stories and take inspiration from TV shows (and Jacob Pitts) but I want to reassure Annie fans – it will not bash her unnecessarily, only where the plot/character exposition/character development point of view requires it.

Finally, I do hope you guys enjoy the story.


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